


The Six

by dragoncreek319



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 17:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15491184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoncreek319/pseuds/dragoncreek319
Summary: This is NOT spoiler free!!! What happened to the seven(oops, six) and some additional characters after Jason's death? Takes place after The Burning Maze. AU story!





	The Six

The six

Piper stared into oblivion as she contemplated what has transpired in the last few days, daring herself to pick up the freaking phone and call Annabeth, tell her what had happened. She deserved to know. They all did. Leo knew. The others didn't. And as much as she'd like to keep it that way, she found out she couldn't. Piper was devastated, but she still felt a little selfish keeping this bombshell from everyone while this daughter of Aphrodite could have a few days of grieving. It wasn't fair, they hadn't even been a couple anymore, when Jason... How could she even think like that. It didn't matter if they had been together or not, she convinced herself. Except it did matter. Maybe if Piper hadn't broken anything off, a person she loves, no loved could've been alive at the moment. Her mother had been right. Love is powerful, dangerous and can be used as a weapon.

Suck it up, she berated herself and dialled her friend's number. Annabeth and Percy had been off helping a Norse demigod, supposedly Annabeth's cousin, but they had been back only recently. Camp Jupiter was fighting the whole fiasco with Apollo and the kings and Percy and Annabeth had been assisting, along with Frank, Hazel, Nico and the hunters. Gods, what was she going to tell Thalia? Deciding that she'd deal with that later, she pressed the CALL button with burning eyes that threatened to spill tears at a moment's notice.

"Hello?," Annabeth's voice travelled over the phone in her hand.

"Uhh... A... Annabeth?," Piper's voice sounded weak to her own ears and she knew her friend had caught up on that emotion. Oh, well.

#########

"Piper? What, what's wrong? Are you okay?," Annabeth added quickly over the line. Her friend, possibly her best friend sounded like she was about to cry and Piper was one of the strongest people she knew. Damn her to Tartarus if she was about to let her friend have zero emotional support. She turned away from the table where she had been eating with Percy and stood up. Seaweed brain stopped dressing his pancakes in blue sauce and stared up at her questioningly. Annabeth waved a hand dismissively and he looked down once again deciding his pancakes hadn't drowned in enough sauce.

"I.. I, J... Jas... Jason's g.. gone. He's , he's gone, Annabeth! ," Piper was wailing now and Annabeth couldn't help the short gasp that escaped her mouth which was followed by a hand clasped to her mouth. Percy turned to her. Annabeth ignored him.

" What do you mean, gone? " Gone could mean a lot of different things, right. Except her heart knew that there was only one type of 'gone' Piper was referring to.

"Jason, he's d..dead," Piper was whispering now, which was worse because that meant she had accepted that piece of news. " He, uhhm," She heard Piper swallow and then continue "He died , gods, he was , was stabbed from behind. Again. B..by Caligula. It was...he...me and Apollo... Meg...just slumped forward...Tempest...arrows...spear..and the blood, all the b..blood, I.. I'm not making any sense, am I?," Annabeth could hear the sheer despair in her voice and pieced together a picture of what Piper had tried to describe. She didn't want to. A familiar sadness took place in her heart and she felt tears trickle at the back of her throat. It would hurt more later, but for now she had to be strong for her best friend. She gulped down her own grief and spoke into the device.

"Piper, where.. where are you, right now?," She asked hoping that Piper wasn't alone at the time. She turned once again only to be met with Percy's concerned face, eyebrows all scrunched together and went to sit back down. Keeping her elbows on the table, one hand in her hair and the other holding the phone, she waited for the reply.

"O.. Oklahoma, with my dad and uhm, Coach Hedge, Leo and Mellie," That meant that Leo knew about it too. The sadness enveloping her heart tightened when she got what Piper was going to ask her to do. Her eyes watered and she blinked back the tears. "Annabeth, could, could you tell the others? I...uhhm, don't think I c..can."

"Of, of course. Yeah, yeah.. yeah, I'll tell them," Her voice caught at 'tell' and she caught Piper's raspy thanks before the line clicked shut.

Annabeth swivelled her head around and saw Percy looming over her.

"You, uhhm, might wanna sit down for this," Annabeth's voice was croaky and she hadn't even been crying. Percy sat at the only other chair, the one opposite hers. She internally chuckled, remembering the incident which caused all the chairs and tables in the camp to be nailed down then remembered what she was about to do and guilt filled her insides. She wasn't supposed to be laughing, she was supposed to be crying. Grieving. She looked up at her boyfriend who was looking at her and she started off.

"Percy, uhhm, gods, something happened...and..," Annabeth wondered how one tells one that one of their best friends died. Bloody. Thankfully, if she could be thankful for anything right now, Percy caught up. His face sobered which and a haunted look took place of the mischief in his eyes, the look that she saw whenever someone mentioned Tartarus.

"Who?," A simple question, with a simple answer, yet it carried so much weight. She didn't want to answer it and instead looked down and pictured her now dead friend's face, with the scar above his lip, the groove in his hair from the bullet and the newly added glasses. She missed him already and thought of what Piper might be feeling right about now.

#########

"Who, Annabeth? G..Grover? Jason? Leo?," He asked, knowing that the others were relatively safe within the borders of the camp. Annabeth's breath hitched at the mention of Jason and Percy understood. He wished he hadn't, though. A tear escaped and he didn't bother wiping it away. No more blond Superman jokes. No more bad eyesight jokes. No more . No more. Jason was no more. That was it. And it hurt even more when he realised that Jason was a year younger than him. Had been. Gods, past tense already. He tried forcing the words out of his mouth, but it didn't matter.

"H..how?" One short word.

"Piper told me that..uhh.. he was...was fighting... Caligula, and that he was stabbed by hi..him." So he died fighting. Justifiable, but not. He wasn't asking for fairness or luck but hoping that one day the gods would realise their stupidity and how their quests, while might not affect them, affect everyone else.

"Hey, at least he died a hero," Annabeth tried offering in compensation but her eyes spoke of a different tale. Percy didn't feel sad as much as he felt angry.

"A hero in a war which wasn't his to fight!" He exploded. "None of ours to fight. So many of us die every day for them, and what do we get in return, a thanks? Heck, not even that," He spoke mockingly without caring if any of the gods listened in. Every possible punishment for them had been levied, from amnesia to hell and he didn't care anymore.

"You think I don't think that way everyday? How, we're all fighting for a futile cause? How people, kids, DIE every single day while the people upstairs don't even bat an eye? How we lose our friends and they just go 'oops,my bad' like it doesn't matter!? I.. I'm sorry, I don't know what happened," Annabeth backtracked and Percy felt guilty for getting angry when a close friend of his had just died. A friend who had a sister who was known by Percy and Annabeth. Who needed to be notified about the death of his brother, from the sound of Annabeth's words.

"Yeah, I'm sorry too, I.. I dunno what happened. No, you know what, I do. We're angry at the gods. The gods are angry at us for being angry at them. Fuck you, Zeus!," Percy shouted the last words aiming them at the sky, making sure that the concerned entity heard. The thunder that rolled shortly after was proof enough.

"Percy, stop. Before..before it gets out of hand. We, uhhm gotta tell the others. I'll go after Thalia. And Reyna. They need to know," Annabeth stood up and rubbed her eyes. She looked at Percy and exited the room. Her shoulders visibly slumped as she exited the door and Percy hoped nothing would happen to her. If Annabeth was tackling Reyna and Thalia, that left Percy with Frank, Hazel and Nico. Oh, and Chiron but he could get Annabeth to go with him for that part. The others, well, maybe they could have an assembly or something. After all, Jason had been praetor.

They used to be seven.

Now they were six.


End file.
